Politics and Culture

December 31, 2009

None of us like that feeling of being left out, especially in the midst of all the New Year celebrations. So here's a chance to join in by sharing the experience of the Germans, Swedes, Danes, and god knows who else, as they watch, as they do every New Year's Eve, this ancient comedy sketch - Dinner for One:

Every New Year's Eve, half of all Germans plunk down in front of their televisions to watch a 1963 English comedy sketch called Dinner for One. Walk into any bar in Bavaria and shout the film's refrain: "The same procedure as last year, madam?" The whole crowd will shout back in automatic, if stilted, English: "The same procedure as every year, James." Even though Dinner for One is, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most frequently repeated TV program ever, it has never been aired in the United Kingdom or the United States, and most of the English-speaking world is ignorant of its existence. When Der Spiegel probed the mystery last New Year's, it found that the BBC had not only never contemplated broadcasting this veddy British nugget in the United Kingdom, the BBC's spokesperson had never even heard of it.

but I'd never till this year actually watched the thing. It's certainly a bravura performance from old stager Freddie Frinton, though the actress playing Miss Sophie - May Warden - annoyingly insists on pronouncing her main line "The same procedure as every year, James", stressing year as well as every. Well, it annoyed me. ["Let's try that again, shall we, May dear? - only this time "every year". Get it? Every year. Stress on "every".Not "every year", or "every year". "Every year". I mean, if it's too much for you, I can always give Dame Sybil Thorndike a ring..."] And, at the end, the implication of upstairs naughtiness to come, far from being the subtle suggestion that I'd expected, could hardly be signalled more blatantly.

Still, it's strangely watchable. (What, I wonder, do the Germans make of Mr. Winterbottom's Yorkshire accent?) And there is a certain pleasure in viewing again, when we already know what's going to happen - though I'm not sure where that leaves most theories of humour, which tend to stress the unexpected element as being crucial to getting the laugh.

After seeing it a couple of times it's now lodged in my mind as a kind of archetype. I'm already wondering if I hadn't perhaps seen it before, in an earlier, more innocent, life.

December 30, 2009

A footnote, as it were, to the previous post. As these al-Qaeda operatives are forced to hide their explosives in ever more intimate places about their person, to avoid the security searches, one has to wonder if they've thought this through on the theological level. The 72 virgin pay-off, as the Daily Mash notes here, will be of absolutely no use to a man who arrives in paradise with his genitals blown off.

Well, we all know how farcical the increase in airplane security is going to be - and how effective. Here's Hitchens:

Why do we fail to detect or defeat the guilty, and why do we do so well at collective punishment of the innocent? The answer to the first question is: Because we can't—or won't. The answer to the second question is: Because we can. The fault here is not just with our endlessly incompetent security services, who give the benefit of the doubt to people who should have been arrested long ago or at least had their visas and travel rights revoked. It is also with a public opinion that sheepishly bleats to be made to "feel safe." The demand to satisfy that sad illusion can be met with relative ease if you pay enough people to stand around and stare significantly at the citizens' toothpaste. My impression as a frequent traveler is that intelligent Americans fail to protest at this inanity in case it is they who attract attention and end up on a no-fly list instead. Perfect....

What nobody in authority thinks us grown-up enough to be told is this: We had better get used to being the civilians who are under a relentless and planned assault from the pledged supporters of a wicked theocratic ideology. These people will kill themselves to attack hotels, weddings, buses, subways, cinemas, and trains. They consider Jews, Christians, Hindus, women, homosexuals, and dissident Muslims (to give only the main instances) to be divinely mandated slaughter victims. Our civil aviation is only the most psychologically frightening symbol of a plethora of potential targets. The future murderers will generally not be from refugee camps or slums (though they are being indoctrinated every day in our prisons); they will frequently be from educated backgrounds, and they will often not be from overseas at all.

Soon after President Barack Obama's inauguration in January, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il welcomed him in typical fashion by testing another nuclear weapon. Mr. Obama reacted firmly by suspending the six-party disarmament talks and imposing tough sanctions. But a year later the Obama administration is poised to begin the talks anew.

That would be a mistake. As American diplomats coax North Korea to return to the negotiating table, a far more significant drama is unfolding: serious instability within the hermit kingdom. This time the Kim regime may really fall, and the Obama administration would be wise to get out of its way.

Kim appears to have finally crossed a line with his own people when he let his son and chosen successor, Kim Jong Un, announce a currency revaluation last month. The Kims were threatened by the growth of a small, independent merchant class and decided to destroy it through a surprise currency revaluation. As many North Koreans lost what little wealth they had and the Kims all but destroyed the small private sector, the public responded angrily. There have been reports of protests and riots, with many North Koreans publicly burning their newly worthless currency—a rare sign of political dissent for North Korea's long-suffering populace....

With protests that forced a policy change, a sanctions regime that has so far deprived Kim of at least $18 million, and uncertainty about the Dear Leader's succession plan, it may well be that this time around Kim is truly running out of money and possibly control.

Rather than bail him out, Washington should let Kim fall. It's the best chance the U.S. has of achieving its twofold objectives: denuclearization in North Korea and the eventual unification of the peninsula. After all, the Kim clique has made it clear after decades of negotiations that no amount of aid will suffice to induce them to end their nuclear program. The relatively conciliatory response to Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth's mission earlier this month—the North Koreans declared that "differences" have been "narrowed"—was a classic North Korean negotiating ploy, not an eleventh-hour acceptance of a nuclear-free world.

And the same message - leave them alone - comes from South Korea's Chosun Ilbo:

Some people have started to call on the Lee Myung-bak administration to moderate its hardline policy toward North Korea. They feel the South should soften its position in tune with the moderating atmosphere whereby the United States has drawn Pyongyang into dialogue. The president himself also hinted at changes in his North Korea policy by referring to an inter-Korean summit.

But this is not the right time to talk about any shifts one way or the other. What is needed is careful observation of the changes in North Korea, particularly because Pyongyang faces a serious economic crisis and public support for the regime looks very shaky....

It's expected that the North will suffer a crisis next year more serious than its 1997-98 famine. If the grassroots market is disrupted while this happens, experts say, the North would suffer large-scale starvation in the lean season next year. In addition, North Koreans are not what they used to be a decade ago. They apparently watch South Korea dramas and are well aware what South Koreans' life is like. "The currency reform has perhaps touched the detonator of the grassroots economy," said a North Korean defector.

Some appeasers point to North Korea's imminent return to the six-party talks. But that only means turning back the clock to an endless meaningless round of agreements and backtracking that achieve no palpable results. The regime seems to realize that it is hitting a cul-de-sac. In working for a breakthrough with the U.S. at a time when U.S. President Barack Obama faces pressure to produce results in the North Korean issue, Kim also needs support from the south Korean president.

In the circumstances, North Korea's nuclear arms and the people's rights are in danger of being forgotten. It looks as though the North's return to the six-party talks, bilateral talks with the U.S., a peace treaty and moderation are becoming ends in themselves. There is no explaining the irony that the U.S., China and even South Korea seem inclined to help the North Korean regime at the very time when it is facing its biggest crisis.

December 28, 2009

The lasting legacy of Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens is in "A Study In Brown", a two-minute black and white film done in early 1940.

One of hundreds of "Soundie" films, they were printed backwards (mirror image) so they could appear correct when played in a Panoram machine (an early film jukebox about the size of a refrigerator) which employed a series of mirrors to reflect an image from a projector onto a 27-inch, reverse-projection, etched-glass screen in the tight, enclosed cabinet. The popular machines were first produced in 1939 by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago, Illinois (which also made art-deco, fancy slot machines), and found their way into countless soda shops, taverns, bus and train stations and other public places across the nation. The specially-made 16 mm films ran in a continuous loop and stopped when an in-line metal strip passed a sensor. The patron then put another nickel (or dime) in the machine to run the series of four to six 2- to 3-minute films again. The Panoram mechanics were housed in art-deco, high-quality wood cabinets and played Soundies, 8- to 12-minute films that typically showed jazz and other musicians of the day, as well as dance troupes and other acts. With the beginning of World War II, production of the Soundies and Panoram machines was drastically reduced due to a wartime raw material shortage and the Mills Panoram's 1940 success quickly faded.

"A Study In Brown" was also shown in movie houses as a bonus before the main feature. Reg Kehoe and His Marimba Queens played from about 1938 to 1955 and was a hugely popular act, starting and ending each yearly tour with appearances at Hersheypark in Hershey, Pennsylvania. In between, the troupe played up and down the East Coast and throughout the Midwest, traveling by bus ala the Big Bands and making the rounds of all the major dance halls—including in Chicago The Aragon, Willowbrook (Oh Henry Ballroom), Melody Mill, Midway Gardens and Trianon.

Stealing the show in "A Study In Brown" was 'hep-cat' bass player Frank DeNunzio, Sr., of Hershey, Pennsylvania, who played his standup–slap bass almost until his death in February 2005. The woman playing the marimba next to the maraca player, Grace Bailey, in the film is Reg's wife, Fern Marie, who died in July 2006. On the back marimba is Joyce Shaw on the upper, Ruth Hauser on the middle octave, and Janet Yonder on the lower. On the side marimba, Madee Greer is on the upper and Polly Weiser on the lower.

Attention at the moment is, of course, on Iran (Andrew Sullivan is the place to go for the latest updates), but let's not forget North Korea.

According to the Daily NK, the use of foreign currency inside the DPRK has now been prohibited - presumably in an attempt to shore up confidence in the struggling NK won, and kill off the last remains of the market economy, after the fiasco of currencydevaluation.

A source inside North Hamkyung Province reported, “A People’s Safety Agency declaration on banning the use of U.S. dollars, Yuan and the Euro was publicized on the 26th. The declaration was posted in public places and in every workplace starting this morning.”

The title of the declaration is, “On punishing severely those who use foreign currencies within our Republic.” Surprisingly, the targets of the declaration are said to include foreigners visiting North Korea.

A source from Yangkang Province also reported, “From December 28, no foreign currencies can be used. The foreign currencies the declaration meant were dollars, Yuan and the euro.” [...]

The Daily NK’s North Hamkyung Province source said, “The possibility of compensating for confiscated currency is low, because it has in itself become illegal for an individual to own foreign currency.”

According to the declaration, trading enterprises or foreign currency earning organizations should put earned foreign currency in the bank within 24 hours and, if they fail to do so, managers will be punished...

The North Hamkyung Province source also cautioned, “Upon the release of this declaration, there will inevitably be someone sent to a prison camp or sentenced to an extreme penalty as a model case. These days, if you are unlucky, you may become the model case for bringing in Yuan or dollars.”

The reason for this measure is that there is no confidence in the North Korean currency, so the public preference is for foreign currency holdings, which the authorities cannot regulate easily.

Nevertheless, it is unlikely that people will willingly pay their own foreign currency to the state, irrespective of this requirement, while it is likely to end up stoking inflation.

So it's a double whammy for the wretched North Koreans: the poorer market traders have seen their savings destroyed by the devaluation, and now those few who'd hoped to protect themselves by storing foreign currency have been been hit as well. The state takes total control - or at least attempts to take total control.

Here's Blaine Harden in the Washington Post, in one of the few MSM commentaries on the NK situation (though written before this latest foreign currency ban):

The currency episode reveals new constraints on Kim's power and may signal a fundamental change in the operation of what is often called the world's most repressive state. The change is driven by private markets that now feed and employ half the country's 23.5 million people, and appear to have grown too big and too important to be crushed, even by a leader who loathes them.

The currency episode seems far from over, and there have been indications that Kim still has the stomach for using deadly force.

There have been public executions and reinforcements have been dispatched to the Chinese border to stop possible mass defections, according to reports in Seoul-based newspapers and aid groups with informants in the North.

Still, analysts say there has also been evidence of unexpected shifts in the limits of Kim's authority.

"The private markets have created a new power elite," said Koh Yu-whan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. "They pay bribes to bureaucrats in Kim's government, and they are a threat that is not going away." [...]

In the view of several outside experts, this month's currency revaluation was a preemptive strike against the markets by Kim Jong Il, an aging leader who is worried about succession and trying to buy time.

"This was one of the strongest measures he could take," said Cho Young-key, a professor of North Korea studies at Korea University in Seoul. "Kim is thinking that if he can't control the markets now, in the future it will get even harder, and then he will be handing power to the son."

Stripping wealth from merchants is consistent with Kim Jong Il's long-held abhorrence of capitalist reform. His government regards it as "honey-coated poison" that can lead to regime change and catastrophe, according to the Rodong Sinmun, the party newspaper in Pyongyang.

"It is important to decisively frustrate capitalist and non-socialist elements in their bud," said the newspaper.

So we go into the next decade with the regimes in both Iran and North Korea - two thirds of the axis of evil (remember the axis of evil?) - looking decidely shaky. And, as Joshua at OneFreeKorea reminds us, they're not unconnected: "Iran is probably the largest single customer of North Korean weapons, and the financier of what North Korea sells to Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other places." If the regime in Iran collapses, it'll be a major blow to the ailing Dear Leader as he struggles to maintain control of his own little prison state.